The total amount of money paid out for all farmers for all crops 

 on the Island of Kauai was $115,000. Clearly this was an inad- 

 equate program that did not match the way that the crops are 

 grown on the Island of Kauai. 



After the passage of the law, Public Law 103-50, the growers ex- 

 pected to receive income for their losses in 1993, 1994, and 1995. 

 We were stunned when we found out that a positive decision was 

 made to not pay growers for dead trees. The papaya trees were 100 

 percent killed by the hurricane. That meant the same growers who 

 received no money in 1992 because he picked for three-quarters, 

 was also going to receive no money for 1993, 1994, and 1995 be- 

 cause his trees had been killed. 



An example of this is some growers are going to be paid for 

 whatever fruit was on the tree at the time of the hurricane, which 

 amounts to 2 months of payment at the beginning of 1993. This 

 would amount in most cases to 1 percent of the value of the crop 

 that is on the tree. 



That is one of the major problems facing us right now. 



As we speak, the last information is being updated and uploaded 

 to Kansas City for the final payment on this program leaving out 

 the growers that the program was designed to assist. We worked 

 closely with Senator Inouye and Congresswoman Mink. 



Our intent was to help the growers and now it looks like we 

 might end up with the same amount of money that we had the first 

 time out. 



The second aspect of the program that is totally inadequate is 

 that the crop year starts at the beginning of the calendar year. 

 That means that growers that were not paid because they had 

 picked three-quarters of their crop for that year are also not going 

 to get paid for the last quarter of 1992. 



Then if they begin picking a little fruit like bananas and papayas 

 in the last quarter of 1993, they will miss their last quarter of 

 1992, they will also not get anything in 1993 deducted from their 

 overall production, meaning that they only get paid for 6 months. 



We request the USDA be directed to pay for production from 

 dead trees and that the crop year be calculated to start the day 

 after the hurricane, and that there be a guarantee that the factor 

 which all claims are multiplied by remains 50 percent by law. 



Thank you. 



[The prepared statement of Mr. Strong appears at the conclusion 

 of the hearing.] 



Mrs. Thurman. Before we go to questions, Representative Lewis 

 has an opening statement which I failed to ask him to give. We 

 also have Representative Deutsch who is from Florida. 



OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. TOM LEWIS, A REPRESENTA- 

 TIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA 



Mr. Lewis. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to personally 

 thank the chairman of the subcommittee for scheduling today's 

 hearing. I would like to also thank each of the witnesses today for 

 taking the time to travel to Washington this afternoon, particularly 

 Mr. Strong. 



Many of you went to great expense to share your insight and 

 knowledge with this subcommittee and we appreciate it. The pur- 



